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Russell Brand hasn’t always been kind when speaking about his ex-wife Katy Perry. He portrayed her as a “vapid, vacuous celebrity” in his documentary BRAND: The Second Coming, and joked about the brevity of their marriage in an interview.
But it’s possible becoming a father to daughter Mabel in November has softened the comedian and actor, because he spoke fondly of Katy when he appeared on UK show John Bishop in Conversation this week. He also discussed the pressures that led to their break-up – as depicted in Katy’s own documentary Part Of Me, Russell texted to say he was divorcing her while she was on her California Dreams tour.
“The marriage didn’t last for a very long time, and I think that is to do with the undulated nature of fame and that, living in those conditions and what was happening,” Brand said.
He said the couple tried to shield their private life from the public spotlight, but it wasn’t hard.
“Katy was obviously very, very occupied and very busy,” Brand recalled. “I was very occupied and very busy—not to the same degree, I recognise. But it meant, I think, that [for] the sanctimony of marriage, which is a very private thing really…I supposed we perhaps—intuitively or explicitly I don’t know—understood that we better protect this thing.
“I still feel very warm towards her,” he continued. “I feel like, when I hear about her or see her, ‘Awe, there’s that person. There’s that person in the world.'”
(“There’s that person” sounds a bit odd, but his affection is obvious if you watch the video below).
When speaking about Russell, Katy has been kind, but equally as frank.
“He’s a very smart man, a magical man and I was in love with him when I married him,” she previously told Vogue. “Let’s just say I haven’t heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me December 31, 2011.”
The 41-year-old also opened about becoming a father for the first time, with his girlfriend Laura Gallacher.
“When [my daughter] was born, I felt something really quite profound,” he said. “I felt extremely present in that birth, completely overwhelmed by it.
“I’ve heard a lot of men say, ‘I didn’t know I had so much love in me’, but I did know I had so much love in me. I just didn’t know what to do with it. And when I saw her, I felt something switch on – this sense of very determined and clear purpose.”
What he says about his relationship with Laura reveals just how much he detested the celebrity lifestyle he and Katy lived.
“Thank god for something normal, something real.”
